COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cuyahoga County prosecutors and defense attorneys on Thursday each urged the Ohio Parole Board to recommend clemency for a Cleveland man facing execution next month.

However, the two sides offered different reasons to spare Arthur Tyler’s life, and they disputed whether he was wrongfully convicted of murdering a produce vendor in 1983.

Attorneys for Tyler said he had no involvement with the shooting and was convicted on the coerced testimony of a co-defendant who later repeatedly confessed to being the triggerman.

County prosecutors told the board that the evidence proves that Tyler shot Sander Leach. However, they recommended that Tyler receive life in prison without parole, as they’re not confident that they could secure a death conviction if the same case came up today.

Tyler, 54, is scheduled to die by lethal injection on May 28. The parole board will make a recommendation early next month to Gov. John Kasich, who has the sole power to grant clemency.

Tyler has admitted that on the day of the murder, March 12, 1983, he and Leroy Head went to the East 66th Meat Market with a gun intending to rob the place. But while Tyler went into the market to scout ahead, his attorneys said, Head held up Leach’s nearby produce van, then shot Leach twice.

Head initially admitted to pulling the trigger, Tyler’s attorneys said, but he changed his story after prosecutors threatened him with the death penalty if he didn’t testify against Tyler. Head was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 2008.

Head later recanted his testimony multiple times, including in sworn affidavits, according to his attorneys.

While denying he pulled the trigger, Tyler has acknowledged his role in the murder, said assistant federal public defender Vicki Werneke. Tyler’s attorneys are seeking to commute his sentence to life with parole. However, Cuyahoga County prosecutors said they’re confident Tyler was the gunman who shot Leach. Assistant County Prosecutor Katherine Mullin said it was “very likely” that Head initially took the blame because he felt threatened by Tyler and then changed his story later because he had nothing to lose in helping his acquaintance.

Mullin said in an interview that she believed Tyler would have been convicted of murder on the testimony of other friends and eyewitnesses even without Head’s testimony. However, the prosecutors argued that Tyler should receive life in prison without parole, because that’s the sentence they would seek if this case came up today.

That’s because they’re not 100 percent certain that they would win a death penalty conviction, given Head’s inconsistent statements and potential troubles in logistical things such as locating witnesses, prosecutors said. In addition, they noted, life without parole was not a sentencing option available under Ohio law in 1983.

In a statement read on his behalf to the board, Matthew Leach, Sander Leach's 31-year-old grandson, said he has no hatred toward Tyler but urged that his death sentence be carried out.

"I do believe that if you do the crime, you do the time," Matthew Leach said in the statement. "Tyler doesn't deserve to see his friends or family either, whether it's incarcerated or free."

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